


Make Me to Rest

by lea_hazel



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Confrontations, F/M, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene, Post-Act 2, Religion, Romance, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-12 09:49:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3352157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/lea_hazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke wanders Hightown at night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Me to Rest

**Author's Note:**

> This story started with one of the most egregiously (in my estimation) missing scenes from the incomplete Sebastian romance arc, and grew to encompass some other confrontations that I felt were vitally missing. I wrote it over six months and stewed over it for several months more, and eventually decided to post it as-is.

The years after the failed Qunari invasion were less than kind to Anna Hawke. Now that she was Champion and the talk of the town, all the Hightown balls and salons she'd once craved were open to her. She refused most of them, regardless. Which would have been fine, if she'd scorned them to sit with Varric at the Hanged Man and trade nasty gossipy rumors and mock their pomposity. No, her friends saw as little of her as did the pandering Kirkwall elite. She shunned the bazaars and the wineshops, and even the armories where she was once seen regularly, loudly admiring the goods on display.

Instead, she wandered Hightown by night with her bow and her hound. The streets were still and peaceful; she'd cleaned them and they'd stayed clean, but there was no harm in making certain the lesson stuck. Citizens peering out from between their velvet drapes could see the Champion keeping a restless, pacing vigil, often till well past midnight. Aveline's guards were unfazed; they were passing familiar with Hawke and her antics. Nighttime strolls were par for the course.

After her late-night patrols, she usually disappeared into her manor for most of the daylight hours. She slept while the market was full of bustle, people working and shopping and gossiping, just outside her doorway. At times no one saw her for weeks, except those who were bold enough to knock on her door in the dying hours of the afternoon. When all was well, she walked the city streets when they were at their quietest, keeping the night and day hours closed and leaving only the twilight open.

When sleep eluded she sought other distractions. On that particular day, she decided to visit the Chantry.

The Chant of Light must be sung from all corners of the earth if salvation is to be found. To Hawke, this meant that it could be relied upon to be open throughout the daylight hours. In the earliest dawn, fishermen brought their daily haul in to market and bakeries started spreading their enticing and insidious smells. While the honest were abed and the dishonest hungover, sleepy initiates opened the grand doors with a singularly unholy creak of rusting hinges. If one got close enough, one could hear the faint hum of the earliest-rising giving voice to their faith.

Anna Hawke usually gave voice to her faith at the archery range. Once, anyway. The whistle and thud of arrows didn't seem like a song of exaltation anymore. These days she saw little reason for it. If she wanted to practice basic forms she could do it in her own stately courtyard, alone. No need to venture out amid the whispers and the speculation.

“I didn't figure you for a Chantry goer,” Varric had said to her, once.

“I'm not,” she said, “usually.”

“Is it because of Bethany?”

It was the one and only time she'd heard him call her sister by name.

After the Deep Roads, she lit a candle for Bethany every week for months. It was almost a year before they got word that she was alive, and months more before she confirmed it in her own handwriting. Anna had gone to the Chantry one more time to offer a prayer of gratitude. Because she had more good sense than people gave her credit for, she didn't make any promises she knew she couldn't keep. If Andraste was watching over her baby sister, it was out of divine magnanimity. No need to insult her with false words; the Maker abhors deception.

Once, she'd seen Sebastian there. He was just a strange man who'd once given her a reward for an act of violence, a few more sovereigns for the money pot, but she recognized him and her eyes followed him briefly from across the room.

Her mother noticed her distraction and followed her gaze. “Darling, who is that? Someone you know?”

“Not as such,” said Anna, and steered her to the votive candles.

“You should try to make new friends in Hightown,” said Leandra decisively.

She had started to take a keen interest in her daughter's friends, and Anna wasn't certain she approved of the scrutiny. At the time she'd just nodded and smiled reassurance. She could be the up-and-coming Lady Hawke, if that was what her mother wanted to hear.

Sebastian didn't properly make her acquaintance until years later. It was funny how everything always seemed to happen all at once. She hadn't thought of him in the interim, except once or twice down in the Deep Roads. She wasn't even sure that she'd remembered his name correctly, but he, of course, knew all about her. By then she'd built up a reputation not just among the thugs and mercenaries of the low streets, but also with the city's upper crust. For better or worse.

It felt good to be well-regarded, as opposed to being regarded highly. The distinction had meant little to her before. Since coming to Kirkwall she'd learn to expect people to fear or respect her, whether for her skill with a bow or her ability to show up just where she was least wanted. Sebastian was rather different. It seemed to Anna that he thought better of her than she did of herself. As Bethany once had, before the Deep Roads took her, and her mother.

“Did I do the right thing?” she'd meant to ask him, but never seemed to find it in her heart.

Bethany's letter was a gift. It was brutally short and it spoke of all the pain and fear and loneliness that she had always tried to spare her sister, but it was real and in her hands. Her familiar handwriting, cramped on a tiny scrap of reused parchment, but still legible. It was proof in her hands that she'd gambled and won. That she hadn't cheerfully led her sister to certain death over their mother's protestations. Bethany was alive, and that was enough. Mother would forgive her... eventually.

The Chantry doors were open. She climbed the steps slowly, one by one. A grey-haired Mother was chafing her hands against the morning chill. Two initiates who looked no older than fifteen were sweeping the entrance, while a third caried a brazier from which the Mother lit incence in the alcoves to either side of the grand door. It towered above her head as she entered, a great empty space that no supplicant could reach.

Anna was thoroughly chilled herself. It was as good a reason as any to walk through the open door and into the heavy-aired dimness of the chapel room. The room was empty, as was the dais, towering before her under the shadow of Andraste's polished golden effigy. It was a good time to come. Inside was warmer than out. In these early morning hours it was empty and quiet, the air still but so stuffy as it became when adherents crowded in, carrying the heavy odor of their fears and regrets. It was the only time when the place of prayer was truly suited to contemplation: quiet, peaceful--

“Hawke!”

\--and undisturbed.

“All right,” she said, turning towards the call. “Who needs saving?”

Sebastian looked honestly puzzled. “I was only surprised to see you here, Hawke. I wanted to say good, er, morning.” He glanced up at the distant stained glass windows mounted high in the Chantry walls. No light filtered through the colored panes to reveal the images they made. The sun was too low in the sky for its rays to reach them.

“I know why _I'm_ awake at such a heathen hour,” said Anna, “but what about you? Surely saving souls requires a better night's rest to accomplish?”

He laughed awkwardly.

“Were you up all night praying?” she guessed. “Fasting? Chanting? Self-flagelating? Because that I wouldn't mind hearing about.”

“Hawke, no,” said Sebastian wearily.

Anna quirked her best, wickedest smile. It was not a very good one.

“It's only that I've been having trouble sleeping,” he said. He raised his hand and then let it drop, as though he wanted to rub at his eyes and thought better of it.

“Oh,” said Anna. “Seems the holy really are just like us ordinary mortals. I've been awake since...” her voice tapered off.

“Well, then, I wish you good health,” said Sebastian with a smile, “and a better night's rest.”

“And I wish you--” Anna said, and hesitated. _I wish you would..._

“A wild adventure? Heavy intoxication? A better sense of humor?” he suggested, attempting to imitate her manner of speaking.

“Oh, all of those, I suppose,” said Anna, gesturing grandly with one arm. “I can help you find them, even, if you wish it.”

“Not a sense of humor, surely?” asked Sebastian.

She shrugged one shoulder. “You're on your own there.”

“What brings you to the Chantry, Hawke?” asked Sebastian.

She was glad he didn't qualify the question, although perhaps it would be nice to know that he noticed whether she came or not. “Can't a Champion wander about her own city at will?” she quipped.

“You've been doing plenty of that,” he said, “if Aveline is to be believed. You didn't answer my question.”

“I suppose you think you're too clever to trick,” said Anna. “The truth is, this was the only open door.”

“Surely no doors are closed before the mighty Hawke?” he asked with a growing smile.

She looked back up at the dark windows above. “At this hour, they are. It's too late, or too early. I'm not certain I can tell the difference anymore.”

“I find the quiet solitude calming,” he said. “The sole advantage of a lost night's sleep. You're not one for solitude, though, are you?”

Anna half-smiled and shrugged. “You caught me,” she said. “Looking for trouble, as always.”

“Where's your better half?”

“Who, Lucky?” she asked. “I thought dogs weren't allowed in the Chantry.”

“Has it ever stopped you before?” asked Sebastian.

A short, sharp laugh slipped out of her mouth. “Well, I'd best let you be,” she said. “No doubt you have so much praying to get back to.”

“I'm certain the Grand Cleric can spare me for a few more moments,” he said. “Would you like to light a candle?” He didn't mention any names; perhaps there were simply too many to choose from.

Obligingly, she followed him to the altar and lit a taper for each of her parents, and one for Carver, too. “I imagine I'll be lighting many more of these, soon enough,” she said, attempting a mischievous grin. “Or maybe you'll be lighting one for me.”

Sebastian said nothing.

She didn't look up to check if it was disapproval or shock that kept him silent. Even Anna Hawke knew when she had crossed an invisible line, if only in hindsight. With little else to say to break the silence, she set down the taper in her hand and turned towards the door. Outside, the courtyard was cast colorless by the grey pre-morning light. This had been her favorite hour of the day, once.

Lucky was sprawled at the head of the stairs, head on his forepaws. When he felt her approach he raised his head and whined for attention.

Anna bent down to scratch behind his ears. “There you are, you big whiny baby,” she said affectionately.

He sprang up at once and started bounding down the stairs, with his mistress following at a more deliberate pace.

It was a credit to his skills that, once he was out of his jangling armor, he could move as silently as a nine-year-old cookie thief. Maybe that was how he'd gotten a start on the delinquent life that led him to Kirkwall and set him in her path. At any rate, she'd heard not a footstep until she felt a hand on her shoulder and narrowly averted putting a knife to his throat.

“Hawke,” he said.

“Be careful,” said Anna. “You nearly made me jump out of my leathers.”

“Maybe you wouldn't mind that too much,” said Sebstian with something like a smile.

“You mean, maybe _you_ wouldn't mind it,” she shot back.

“Hawke,” he repeated, and she didn't know if he was angry or disappointed or both.

“The Chant won't be heard in all four corners while you're here, talking to me,” said Anna.

“Why did you come?” he asked.

“I told you,” she said, “yours was the only open door. I'd have gone elsewhere if I'd known what reception I'd get.”

He bowed his head. “And here I thought I had never been anything short of welcoming.”

She hesitated, but finally said, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.”

“You know what I meant,” he said. “Why _did_ you come?”

She paused, reflected, reluctant for once to speak her mind as baldly as she would with, say, Varric, or even Aveline.

“Whatever it is that you think you should hide from me, I wish you wouldn't.”

_And I wish..._

She shook her head. “Where were you when my mother died?”

He fell back half a step and just looked at her, dumbfounded.

“My secret is out,” said Anna with a crumpled smile. “Never you mind, I should not have said anything.”

“I meant to come see you, Anna,” he said. “Really, I did. As soon as I heard what had happened – I thought you oughtn't be alone at such a time.”

“I _am_ alone,” said Anna. “The house – the _estate_ – it's not meant for one woman living alone. It's the Amell family estate, Sebastian, and now it's back in Amell hands and there is no more family left to fill it.”

“I'm sorry,” said Sebastian.

“Don't apologize,” she said tersely.

“I didn't mean–“

“Oh, I know what you meant,” said Anna. “It's not necessary. It's not your fault their places are empty. Carver, Bethany, Mother... everyone I couldn't help. And my father. How could I expect you to fill that hole?”

“I had meant to come see you,” he said again, more quietly, “but by the time the news reached me, well... the next time we saw each other, you didn't seem to want to dwell on it. And you haven't spoken of it, not to me, since.”

Anna laughed, a short, hacking sound. “I was half-convinced that Aveline had scared you away.”

Sebastian couldn't help but smile. “She wouldn't do such a thing, surely.”

For a moment she said nothing, just watched the wide courtyard where the shadows were crawling nearer to the buildings that cast them, as dawn slowly turned to morning. Although the sun was not yet visible, the sky was changing and the air was filled with rose and gold. Gone was the pale, translucent silver of her favorite hour, when no one else was about. Daybreak.

“I grieved for her,” said Sebastian. “I still do.”

“Don't you have to be somewhere?” asked Anna. “It's morning.” And she tilted her head up to the lightening sky as though she could feel the sun's warmth on it.

“I'm sorry, Anna,” he said. “I should have tried harder. I was... lost in my own grief, I suppose.”

That startled her.

He nodded. He'd expected her surprise. “Lady Leandra was a dear friend to me. Kirkwall may never see her like again.”

“I don't– I can't–“ her words deserted her all at once. Then she slumped and said, “I'm going home, to bed.”

“Will I see you again today?” he asked.

Anna breathed out a low deep sigh. “I'll be at the Hanged Man at dusk. Find me there, if you will.”

“Perhaps I shall,” said Sebastian, and half-turned towards the stairs, ready to take his leave.

“Sebastian?”

Her call stopped him in his tracks. “Anna?”

“I won't wait for you forever.”

“What?” he asked slowly.

“I plan to go patrolling in the docks just after sundown,” she said. “If you intend to join me, don't be late.”

With that, they parted ways.


End file.
